Yutaka Aso

(1898 - 1961, Japan)

Nonki na Tosan

Yutaka Aso is a pioneer of Japanese comics. He created the popular series 'Nonki na Tosan' ('Daddy Easygoing') shortly after the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1923. The strip was the first serial multi-panel cartoon to appear in a Japanese newspaper, and it appeared in The Hochi Shimbun for over 600 episodes. Aso, who had worked for the Hochi Shimbun as a political caricaturist since 1922, later moved to The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Shortly after World War II, Aso created a series of 22 drawings about the postwar rehabilitation of country's most famous shopping district, called 'Ginza Picture Scroll' (1946-57). In 2006 it was announced that 'Nonki na Tosan' would become the logo of the main shopping street of Usa, Oita Prefecture.